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One question we need to answer first is that are new frameworks, practices and methods simply a fashion and reinventing the wheel or is it because the pace of c
by maxwin 17y ago
One question we need to answer first is that are new frameworks, practices and methods simply a fashion and reinventing the wheel or is it because the pace of change of software industry is so fast that we need to have new innovations every couple of years in order to keep up with it?
- stcredzero 17y agoWe have plenty of theories of Software Engineering. The problem is that there are impediments to empirical verification of these theories. There are other impediments to replicating the results. Hang those impediments on any discipline, and you transform it from a technical field to mumbo-jumbo. Basically, the problem has to do with flows of information. Free/Open Source helps, as it facilitates the flow of information. However, it's not a complete solution.
- frossie 17y agoWe have plenty of theories of Software Engineering. The problem is that there are impediments to empirical verification of these theories. I don't get it - software engineering is not physics. There doesn't need to be a Grand Unifying Theory. Software engineering is like skinning a cat - there's more than one way to do it.
- stcredzero 17y agoYeah, but even some random ad-hoc curve from geology for packing of sediments does better with empiricism than lots of Software Engineering. Heck, I bet some carpenters have more effective metrics than many programming groups do.
- omouse 17y agoThe problem is that company's will either conduct no analysis of their own software engineering processes or they will conduct an analysis but the data for it will be hidden meaning that it cannot be verified or reproduced. So everyone has a theory, but there is little data to support the theories and getting that data is very difficult.
- stcredzero 17y agoRight, it's like the dark old days of Alchemy before the scientific discipline of Chemistry. We are still transitioning from quirky weirdo/geniuses doing arcane things in secret for a wealthy patron to doing things in the open, with peer review and an open fact-based debate.
- 10ren 17y agoA bit of both. The reinvention is partly very similar to business books, each of them saying the same things, but with a different spin... and not mentioning the others nor their similarities. For software, the rapid creative destructionism of hardware - disruptive innovations - creates opportunities for the next methodology to get a foothold. On the other hand, just as different branches of engineering (chemical, mechanical, civil etc - and their sub-branches) need different methodologies because the issues are different, a disruptive innovation in effect often creates a new branch of engineering, that changes the issues, so that, a different methodology really is appropriate. My thesis would be more compelling if I could think of some examples. But here's an observation: if methodology really mattered, wouldn't the firms that followed one of them triumph over everyone else? But that doesn't seem to happen. It's not because methodology is unimportant, but that it is unimportant relative to marketing and technical innovation. In "real" engineering, most of that has settled down as they mature, and methodology rises in relative importance. [Just my thoughts] EDIT I think the above count as some of the impediments mentioned by stcredzero.
- stcredzero 17y agoSo your take is just that things change so fast, it creates chaos.
- 10ren 17y agoStrikes me as an inaccurate exaggeration, but something like that. More like building on a fault-line or flood-plain.